Sabah Wildlife Department Honors SOS Rhino with Appreciation Ceremony and Welcomes New Members to the SOS Rhino Borneo Board

SOS Rhino has moved forward on one of its major goals to bring the Borneo rhino back to the front of conservation efforts in Sabah, Malaysia. Two videos of wild rhinos by SOSR rangers in the last year have accentuated the success of these efforts. The following highlights exemplify the progress that has been made:

The Sabah Wildlife Department is spearheading the State rhinoceros conservation taskforce and called on the local police to help them institute a zero tolerance for illegal hunting in the reserves.

A project launched by the federal government of Malaysia in January 2008, the Sabah Development Corridor, recognized the need for specific conservation action in relation to the endangered status of the rhino in Sabah and is now high on the State’s priority list.

Sabah’s Minister of Tourism Culture and the Environment (MTCE), YB Datuk Masidi Manjun, welcomes and encourages assistance from NGOs, but stated emphatically that the state and national government must make saving the last rhinos of Malaysia a top priority.

The MTCE and Sabah Wildlife Department hosted a highly publicized Appreciation Ceremony for SOS Rhino to recognize the contributions to rhinoceros conservation in Sabah.

Two of SOS Rhino Borneo’s Board Directors are on the State’s rhinoceros conservation taskforce.

In line with SOS Rhino’s mission to capacitate all local stake holders in wildlife and habitat conservation, we called for the government to continue to spearhead a consortium effort between government and business to save the rhino. Their cause will be saving the rhino as a symbol of their dedication to their natural environment with the hope that the international community will become involved in this coalition.

Keeping up the focus on the rhino locally is an expanded SOS Rhino
Borneo board. SOSRB is a local NGO established in 2003. Its
Sabah-based board of highly skilled qualified and dedicated
conservation leaders offered to advise the Sabah Wildlife Department's
accelerated effort to bring the conservation of the Sumatran
rhinoceros in Borneo to the next level. In the appreciation ceremony,
Sabah Wildlife Department extended their gratitude to the new board
for their assistance.

SOS Rhino Borneo's four new board members bring an increase in local
expertise in the missions of the program such as surveying and
research. They will keep the government, oil palm plantations and
local community around Tabin Wildlife focused on the rhino. SOS Rhino
Borneo will work together with the key relevant government agencies
and NGOs to proactively address their needs in terms of expertise and
manpower.

We would like to pass the appreciation on to our partners. You have
facilitated a brighter future for the Sumatran rhino in Borneo and we
encourage your further assistance to this dedicated SOSRB board. Thank
you to all.